Israeli forces clash with Palestinians at West Bank checkpoint

Israeli forces clash with Palestinians at West Bank checkpointIBTimes UK

Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian youth during demonstrations at Qalandia – a major checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah on 6 October. Several hundred Palestinians demonstrated over tension in Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque and recent bloodshed. Some threw stones, while Israeli forces equipped with riot gear fired rubber bullets and threw stun grenades to disperse the crowd.

Violence has intensified in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank in recent weeks, raising concerns of a wider escalation, though it has not yet reached the level of past Israeli-Palestinian confrontations.

Four Israelis have been killed and three wounded since 1 October in two stabbings and one drive-by shooting, blamed on Palestinian militants. Police shot dead two of the assailants. Two Palestinians were killed and about 170 injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

Recent tensions have been inflamed in particular by frequent clashes between Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli security forces at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest shrine. Palestinians fear increasing visits by Jewish groups to al-Aqsa, revered by Jews as the site of biblical temples, are eroding Muslim religious control there.